I have recently been preoccupied with the meaning of life, and expressed my fear that maybe all my life was spent building what amounts to a sandcastle. It was depressing.

Some of you—thank you—told me to stop and desist, that I have done a lot for the world I live in. You said that I have done my share of tikun olam, so all this self-doubt is not warranted. Stop kvetching one said. Thank you. You are probably right.

But I still hold to my point: We all create sandcastles. We climb mountains that are only in our heads. We chase imaginary rainbows we never capture. The rainbow moves. And for every mountain peak we ascended it was only to see the next mountain with the next peak.

Climbing mountains and chasing rainbows is not without benefit. That is not the sand castle I was referring to. While alive we contribute and do good, but after we die what happens to what we have created? We are forgotten or at best, our work gets reinterpreted, and often abused. Look what the Inquisitors did with Jesus’s preaching on love. Karl Marx had the best of intentions to make a better world and what did his followers implement? Gulags, cultural revolutions, and oppressive misery for the masses.

What is permanent? What is not a sandcastle?

It occurred to me that fine art is not like a sandcastle. It is recreated each time a piece of art is viewed or music is played.

I remember visiting the Taj Mahal for the first time. I thought I knew what to expect—I had seen the pictures many times. But seeing it in real life was something else. As I turned the corner at the entrance to the tourist attraction, and it came in full view, I admit, I started crying. I was moved. What I saw was so beautiful. Why is that?

I do not get so moved, energized, or uplifted by rap music or dance music. If I do it is only for a very short interval of time. Only certain music moves me repetitively. Music my mother used to sing to me, for example. I can still feel the love in her voice years later. And certain classical music I love. I get energized by quality fine art, not by the kind of paintings found on motel walls.

What is the common denominator?

These works are produced not to serve the artist, nor to serve the audience. They are created out of inspiration, where the artist is only an honest instrument, a channel, pure as can be, for the inspiration that comes from love. My mother’s music inspires me because there was so much love in her singing to me, and to her grandchildren. And the Taj Mahal was built to express the love of the emperor to his beloved wife that passed away. And what is absolute love? Is it not God?

Real creative artists will tell you they did not create their work; they were inspired in creating it. Pay attention to the word inspired, which is so close to “in spirit.” Real artists are a clean channel through which higher consciousness expresses itself.
Where is this inspiration coming from? I suggest from God. And what is God if not absolute LOVE. And God is permanent.

When what is created is created with pure LOVE, true, unconditional love it is more permanent. Not a sandcastle. That is why I said previously in my blog that I am most alive when I give of myself and yield to love—not to ego, not to money, not to fame—but to do God’s work, to do what inspires me, what fulfills my heart.

How much love is there in the work you do? How inspired are you? Do you create for ego gratification? For the bank account? Or you create whatever you do, even wash restrooms, because you cannot help it. It is stronger than you. Bigger than you. You will die inside if you do not do it? And if it financially rewarded, we do not reject it but we do not chase it.
If so, you are blessed. . . I am.

Thank you for the article, dr.Adizes. Thinking about meaning of life, genuine human books, researches, texts, paintings, thoughts, emotions make more impact then just a single expression. So the impact, even coming from dreams, is much more then just a personal dreams.

In contrary, biological impact bases just on three common instincts (ego, money and fame in the article`s terms are the basic instincts, the same to all mammals, not just for humans.) Everything which works just to satisfy that needs is common, and produces a lot of sand-castles. Just because the driving force belongs to the eldest part of human brain, it is repetitive and short run. Instincts demand for instant reward from outside. (In fine arts you can found a lot of repetitive ego results. For example “Black square” was copycat from early works of Alphonse Allais.)

It seems dreamers are different. Sand-castles are different. Coming from deep Integration, could be called as God, or any other name, having ideas of love, construction, that structures make impact of humanity in long run. Even coming from personal dreams as Taj-Mahal: although the inicial story was typical, the result was the collective impact of exceptional human minds acting in purpose, with respected fine skills. The same for the best classical music. Individual impact, even with sand-castles, melting with human skills of heart and mind, with personal endeavours, became a unique God`s work for the long run. I guess, the long run endeavours indicate the quality.

I feel you are aware of your age. You try to find meaning. There is none. There is no God. We are mammals – part of life in the Universe. We disintegrate to atoms after death and rejoin the cosmic entity. As Kohelet said: “Akol evel havalim. Hakol evel”

It’s great that you selected this particular topic Ichak – a topic we should all talk about all the time.

I like how you locate the flow of love in the ultimate source. You recognise that love in the final analysis drives the creation of value. You enjoy it and identify with it.

When discussing existential meaning, however, it seems that you are results oriented. You seek a socially recognisible result that has to endure through time. It has to be an end product of a creative effort widely ackowedgled and recognised as such. You have to leave something of great value behind which in turn perpetuates itself and endures as a sign throughout generations. This achievement then ascribes purpose to your own life and makes it worth living.

However, my own analysis of the matter suggests that our meaning cannot depend on great results we achieve or fail to achieve. The meaning of life lies primarily in the way we were designed to function. And we were designed to function by generating or creating value for others and for ourselves. That’s the purpose of our life – to utilise our design function. Some of us will achieve great things and some won’t. Some will become widely known for their achievements and some will remain small and anonymous. Nevetheless, both groups will enjoy generating value for others however small or large that value is. Both groups will be driven by the desire to generate and create for others.

Please consider the following theses:

1. We were designed from life and for life. Omne vivum ex vivo – “all life from life” – expressed in an endless number of variations, springs from within the Designer’s being. In Him everything becomes and assumes an exquisite existential form. He is the source of all that is alive and aesthetically valuable. He is the begetter of this great joie de vivre, of “la grande bellezza”, the great passion for life.

As the greatest being in the universe, unconditioned by a purpose higher than Himself, He affectionately commits Himself to production. He commits Himself to producing life in its endless formal variations with a passion of the master impressionist. He pays attention to every flower; He is aware of every shade of color. He feels the smallest shiver in the wind and with the lightest touch He enables the substance of life to replicate itself. He joyfully shares life with all life that He created and intimately admires the ability of the created life to reproduce.

To Him we are the “object of concern.” “Our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.” (Alain de Botton)

Indeed, we flourish because in Him we experience our deepest selves and our dearest familiarities. In Him we intuitively recognise His most secret affection, His kindest words and His warmest expressions of care. It was He who wanted us in His life; He who desired to share the experience of an overflowing life with those He designed for this very purpose of life sharing. And what better term to describe this opulent sharing of life than love itself.

2. We were designed to generate value for others and for ourselves. To borrow Martin Heidegger’s comment on art, to Him we were “hidden in nature as a rift-design, a measure and a boundary, and, tied to it, a capacity for bringing forth – that is art… This art hidden in nature becomes manifest only through the work, because it lies originally in the work.”

In view of the fact that we became manifest through His work and shaped in accordance with the artistic nuances of His being, we, too, were designed to engage in authentic creativity. Creative work is talent-specific as it enables each individual to produce according to her distinct gift. Creative work is both internal (brings out the best in us), and external (shares the nuances of our value-generating personality with other individuals). We understand creativity to be equivalent to value because our work must add conceptual, commercial and relational benefits to individuals in both professional and private environments.

Generating value is a matter of production. BusinessDictionary.com points out that “processes and methods are used to transform inputs” into final products. Creative “resources are used in this process to create an output that is suitable for use or has exchange value.” And our creative work is arguably the main driver behind value-generating processes and their beneficial outputs. This is a two-way street resulting in mutual profitability as recipients significantly benefit from the value we “co-create” with them and for them.

3. We were designed to reduce biological entropy to the minimum. In order to prolong life that enables the creative work, our cells require a definite number of essential minerals, vitamins, amino acids and essential fatty acids as well as a favorable genetic pool. If any of the mentioned elements is missing, we will, most likely, continue to function with a degree of regularity. However, even if we maintain a fairly regular biological function, we will not be able to function properly in the long run. Time accelerated by free radicals will necessarily erode our cellular ability to carry out prescribed processes and our cells will begin to fail at an increased rate. Entropy (disorder) will increase and our ability to function properly will inversely decrease. We call this situation sickness or disorder.

The healthy individual, on the other hand, is the one who manages to reduce biological disorder to its acceptable minimum. Acceptability stands in close correlation with proper biological function and it operates as a synonym of what we generally refer to as health. Put differently, individuals who maintain a healthy lifestyle tend to enjoy enviable long term benefits and expanded lifestyle opportunities.

And it seems that by articulating and accepting the three purposes our lives were designed for we, too, will come to love life, produce value and maintain health. Ignorning the three purposes, however, will inevitably produce counter-effects preventing our lives to be enjoyed and lived „to the full.“

Thinking about purpose of life is known phenomenon for smart people. It does not depend on our biological age or life conditions. From early birth people exist in both registers – body and spirit – and when we create something we try to understand the meaning of all that. Meaning is not measured by “body” metrics of money, power, etc. And to see invisible meaning beyond the deal requires open spirit and free mind. We are learning to grow at that extend all our life. Everyone is looking for answer for oneself.

I suppose the difference between real art (work, composition, methodology, etc) and sandcastles is ability to give birth for new ideas, new work or art. Real art is alive, it changes someone who look at peace of art including the author. The author is growing together with his art-baby. Sandcastles are dead, they do not create anything new even if someone is ready to understand.

I was told once by the great P Rajagopalachari,My guide and Guru, when i was myself down and in need of avenues to express my creativity that ” Creativity is the yearning of the soul to express itself”. And the only food for the soul is Love. As an Architect, I also have a similar problem whether i should work for my passion or my ego and that creates enormous disturbance to me.

Your work in Corporate change management is phenomenal and I have not come across such work in my lifetime. I dont know you personally, but i talk about you and your work to all i meet simply because it is genuine.

All great people never survived to see their legacy but 100 or 200 years later they were appreciated and that is the story of human life.

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Please note:

The insights presented in these blogs are the personal insight of Dr. Ichak Kalderon Adizes and do not necessarily express the opinion or position of the Adizes Institute or its staff individually or as a group.

DISCLAIMER: The insights presented in these blogs are the personal insight of Dr. Ichak Kalderon Adizes and do not necessarily express the opinion or position of the Adizes Institute or its staff individually or as a group.